The engineers at Intel have done an incredible job tuning the firmware of their 510 Series to suit the needs of today's consumers. Especially in our ISO file copy and game patching benchmarks, the Intel drive plays in a completely different league from any other drive on the market today - including current SATA 6 Gbps SandForce drives. Our other benchmarks also show great results for the 510 Series, making it the fastest SSD we tested so far. Only the mighty OCZ Vertex 3 can stay close: 2% behind.
However, with a whopping price of $600 for the 250 GB version, the Intel 510 Series is also the most expensive SSD we ever held in our hands. If you are looking for the best price/performance ratio, then Crucial's C300/M4 are unbeatable, thanks to their low price. Drives using the latest SandForce 6 Gbps controller are typically a bit cheaper per GB than the 510 Series, but also offer lower performance. In my opinion, the Intel 510 Series is the drive to go for, when you are looking to maximize performance, with money being only secondary.